The stamp's central motif is a portrait of Jefferson Davis, designed and line engraved on steel by Frederick Halpin and then transferred to steel printing plates. They are very similar in design to Type I, distinguished most easily by the filled-in corners, outer scrolls, and the presence of a light outer line framing the entire design. The plates for the Archer & Daly stamps were transferred to Columbia, South Carolina, when the fall of Richmond became inevitable in late 1864. The company of Keatinge & Ball then printed the stamps.

There were approximately 7,500,000 stamps printed from two plates, each with two panes of one hundred. The imprint is “Keatinge & Ball, Bank Note Engravers, Columbia, S.C.”; Plates 3 and 4. Full sheets of two hundred are known. The earliest recorded date of use is September 4, 1864. Colors vary from blue to deep blue and dull blue. Print varieties include chilled and overheated plates. The most typical use was to pay the ten-cent letter rate.